Help for a doctor

[Aussieaid]

California EMSA might help you get started or give you an idea. If not there are some contact details that you could try contacting them directly to see what you would need to do.

Good luck and I hope you don't get too frustrated in California as unfortunately it is one of the less progressive and most confusing states for EMS in the U.S. (From what I understand!)

[Kiwiology]

California is one of the least progressive states I have seen ... unfortunately little has advanced since the days of Johnny and Roy in the early 1970s. If I have crushing chest pain in Los Angeles I hope I can make it to Phoenix or Portland, seriously.

Physician involvement in prehospital medicine as far as the US seems to be concerned is limited to the regulatory requirement for a medical director. Unlike in Europe and some other nations (including here in NZ) the consensus is that there is no need for a physician on scene because the Paramedics learnt everything they need to know down at the six month patch factory and a Doctor is of no help.

The US is still mostly based upon the concept you must make contact with a physician to exceed what is generally a rather restrictive standing order (eg 10mg of morphine is not uncommon to be the limit that a Paramedic is able to autonomously administer) and education as well as culture and modalities of clinical praxis reflect it. There is little interest in such things as rapid sequence intubation, advanced combination anaglesia, treat-and-refer, treat-and-leave or requiring education beyond what most other Western nations considered inadequate ten to twenty years ago.

In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa it takes four to six years to become an Intensive Care Paramedic (ALS) whereas the same level of practice can be achieved in as little as tweleve weeks in the US.